Senior Medical Officer Interviews: Tell Your Leadership Story

When applying for Senior Medical Officer (SMO) roles, interviews aren’t just about your clinical skills — they’re about your leadership, strategic thinking, and ability to contribute to service priorities.

In a recent webinar, I outlined how to approach these interviews with confidence:

• Understand what panels are really assessing — your leadership, service development capabilities, and system-level thinking.
• Research the organisation’s strategic plans and priorities. Tailor your examples to align with their goals.
• Showcase key themes: leadership, team culture, quality and safety, strategic planning, and stakeholder engagement.
• Prepare strong examples using a storytelling framework: what happened, what you did, the outcome, and what you learned.
• Practise your responses aloud and prepare 3–4 “anchor stories” that can be adapted across a range of questions.

Senior interviews are about demonstrating your future potential as a service leader, not just reflecting on past achievements. Preparation makes all the difference.

You can find the recording on the Standout Medical Careers YouTube channel click here:

If you’d like more support, my next Interview Intensive Mini-Workshop is coming up soon — or feel free to book a free consultation via the Standout Medical Careers website.

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